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The War Goes Ever On
By Paul Craig Roberts
04/24/07 "ICH"
-- -- Is the Iraq war to become a permanent feature?
The war persists despite the opposition of a majority of
Americans and Iraqis.
The war persists despite warnings from US generals that the
stress is breaking the US Army.
The war persists despite its enormous cost in red ink and
dependence on foreign loans.
The war persists despite its total failure.
The war persists despite the known fact that it was based on
Bush administration lies and deception.
President Bush’s latest delusion--the surge--has not increased
security. The surge has been accompanied by new records of daily
Iraqi civilian casualties, such as the 312 Iraqis killed and 305
wounded on April 18. Recently, US commanding general David
Petraeus said that Iraqis would just have to learn to live with
daily bombing attacks. Petraeus promises Iraqis decades of
violence when he says, “Iraq is going to have to learn--as did
Northern Ireland--to live with some degree of sensational
attacks.”
For the past two years polls of the US public have shown that a
majority of Americans believe that it was a mistake to invade
Iraq.
Polls of Iraqis show that large majorities support attacks on US
troops and want US forces withdrawn from their country.
The Iraqi Ministry of Health has concluded that 70% of primary
school students in Baghdad suffer from trauma-related stress
from passing dead bodies in the streets, from witnessing
relatives being killed, and from being injured in attacks.
President Bush and his dwindling band of apologists allege that
the US cannot withdraw from Iraq without a bloodbath between
Sunnis and Shiites. This bloodbath is already occurring. Indeed,
the bloodbath was caused by the US invasion, which took
political power from Sunnis and gave it to Shiites in the form
of a US protectorate or colony.
Bush’s invasion of Iraq had no justification. Continuing the war
has no positive effects. Each day that the war continues
produces more pointless casualties, more red ink and dependence
on foreign creditors, more trauma, and more hatreds.
The Bush administration is continuing the war without a
realizable or defensible goal. Although the Iraqi government is
supposedly a democratically elected majority Shiite government,
in reality it is puppet creature of the US occupation without
real power and without public support. The “Iraqi government”
exists only within the heavily fortified and US guarded “green
zone” in Baghdad. Even this protected zone is subject to
attacks. Just last week the parliament was bombed
As a colony or protectorate, Iraq is too costly to maintain. The
US has already incurred out-of-pocket and future costs of $1
trillion or more. The total gains from oil exploitation and
military-security complex profits do not approach this massive
figure imposed on US taxpayers which is growing by the day.
As bad as it is, the situation could suddenly become much worse.
Those in charge of US policy want to expand their targets from
Sunni insurgents to Shiite militias. US forces have been unable
to prevail over a lightly armed insurgency drawn from 20% of the
population. The Shiite population is three times larger.
Moreover, Shiites control southern Iraq, the territory through
which US supplies must pass from Kuwait to Baghdad. If the Bush
administration manages to get itself at war with 80% of the
Iraqi population, US troops could be cut off and destroyed.
How would an unstable egomaniac such as President Bush deal with
the humiliation?
The US dollar, already under pressure from large and growing
trade deficits, has lost more of its value to the Bush
administration’s dependence on foreign borrowing to finance its
war. With foreigners accumulating huge annual sums in US
denominated assets, the US dollar’s reserve currency role is
jeopardized. If the dollar loses its reserve currency role,
foreigners will not finance our wars or our trade and budget
deficits.
The risks of Bush’s war both to Iraqis and Americans is out of
proportion to any conceivable gains. The war is all cost and no
benefit. Iraqis have been made massively insecure, and their
country has undergone tremendous destruction and turned into a
training ground for terrorists.
The entire Middle East has been put at risk of Sunni-Shiite
conflict. Muslim hostility to US puppet regimes in Egypt,
Jordan, and Pakistan is rising. The Saudis have warned
Washington that the Iraq war is causing the ground to shake
beneath their feet.
Bush claims that he invaded Iraq because he so highly values
democracy that he desired to establish one in Iraq as an example
for other Middle Eastern countries to follow. However, what Bush
has demonstrated to Muslims is that American democracy is
unresponsive to citizens and voters. Bush has demonstrated to
the world that the US government is controlled by a small
oligopoly of vested interests, the public be damned. Democracy
means a government that follows the will of the people. Bush is
ignoring public opinion and has made it clear that he will
continue the practice.
Bush has shown the world that the only difference between
American dictatorship and other dictatorships is that, for now,
Americans are permitted to remove their dictator after his term
is served.
Paul
Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was
Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial
page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is
author or coauthor of eight books, including
The Supply-Side Revolution
(Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic
appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political
Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous
scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30
occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious
Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer
for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert
Mundell.
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